From the popular live TV broadcast of The Sound of Music to Kinky Boots and Matilda, 2013 has been a great year for good theater music

Millions of people saw the live TV broadcast of
The Sound of Music, the first major TV musical in years and the first live musical on TV
in decades.
The production went pretty well Thursday on NBC- no major glitches or hitches that I could
see, and the singing and acting were pretty good - enough to justify an encore with more great
musicals brought to TV. (Whether live or not, I don't care. I just want to see more great musicals
reach a mass audience.)
If you saw and enjoyed the broadcast, you should grab the just-released cast album. If you
didn't, the singing might prompt you to catch up with the TV show on Hulu or NBC's website.

Cast albums are not only good souvenirs after seeing a
musical, but also a great way to familiarize yourself with great songs that tell a story.
If you haven't seen the musical yet, cast albums can introduce you to their strengths – and
sometimes, their potential flaws.
Of course, this season of the year, cast albums (and solo albums by Broadway veterans) make
great stocking stuffers.
If I had to pick just two cast albums as gifts for people who love good musicals and good
music, I'd recommend
Kinky Boots and
Matilda the Musical – the most impressive new Broadway musicals of the past season
But there was a lot of other worthwhile theater music that came out this year.

The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music, which will air live at 8 tonight (Thursday Dec. 5) on NBC channels
including WCMH-TV (Channel 4), remains one of the most beloved musicals of modern times,
largely because of the immense popularity of the 1960s movie musical starring Julie Andrews.
But if you're not a purist, and you don't mind the more emotional aspects of a show long
deemed too saccharine by critics, you might enjoy the fresh approach taken by the Dec. 5 live TV
broadcast of the last great Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.
In a pre-show recorded cast album released this week (presumably more polished than the
ever-tricky live broadcast), Carrie Underwood sings sweetly as Maria von Trapp (though I still
prefer Julie Andrews).
Better yet,
The Sound of Music – Music From the NBC Television Event. (Sony Music Masterworks)
features a bevy of Broadway talents.
Legendary Audra McDonald sings wonderfully on
Climb Every Mountain and other songs as expected as Mother Abbess, while
True Blood vampire Stephen Moyer sinks what turns out to be very good dramatic teeth and
vocals into the role of Captain Von Trapp.
The rest of the casting and singing sparkles, including Broadway veteran Laura Benanti as the
captain's fiancé Elsa and Tony winner Chistian Borle
(Smash) as Max Detweiler.

Kinky Boots
Cyndi Lauper made a very impressive Broadway debut as a composer-lyricist with her
score for Kinky Boots, the inspiring and amusing musical about a failing British shoe factory that
discovers a fresh market for its revamped wares by serving tranvestites.
Whatever one may think of the outrageous characters and provocative story, the songs are
terrific - from the high-strutting
Land of Lola and vamping
Sex is In the Heel to the giddy pleasures of
Raise You Up/Just Be and
Everybody Say Yeah.
For catchy melodies and upbeat lyrics, Lauper's first Broadway score can't be beat.
Even if you haven't seen this musical yet, grab this cast album now.
You'll enjoy it, and it will help familiarize you with the 2013 Tony winner for best musical,
which is bound to launch a national tour in the next year or so and eventually reach Columbus.

Matilda the Musical
Perhaps more appropriate for children but just as provocative in its own way as a
cautionary children's fable as
Matilda the Musical (Broadway Records.)
There are a few songs that prove truly haunting in this brilliant British-import adaptation
by the Royal Shakespeare Company of Roald Dahl's dark fantasy about a book-loving girl who
discovers special powers to resist oppression by her ignorant parents and a cartoonishly
authoritarian school headmistress.
My favorite
Matilda song – one that really has grown on me, and that I now can't get out of my head
(and wouldn't want to) – is
When I Grow Up, a wise but painfully clear-eyed view of childhood.
It's also a rousing call to action and independent thinking. Just consider some lyrics:
"And when I grow up, I will eat sweets every day on the way to work and I will go to bed late
every night..
"When I grow up, when I grow up I will be strong enough to carry all the heavy things you
have to haul around with you when you're a grown-up! And when I grow up... I will be brave enough
to fight the creatures that you have to fight beneath the bed each night to be a grown-up!
"Just because you find that life's not fair, it doesn't mean that you just have to grin and
bear it. If you always take it on the chin and wear it nothing will change!"

Pippin
First, I must admit that although I have fallen in love with some of Stephen Schwartz's other
songs – such as
Day by Day from
Godspell or
Popular and
Defying Gravity from
Wicked – I have never really warmed up much to the songs in
Pippin.Second, I have to say that the best thing about the Tony-winning current Broadway revival of
the musical fable about the coming-of-age of Charlemagne's son is its staging and circus-spectacle
framing.
Given such caveats, you might not expect me to give a thumb's up to the cast album
(Ghostlight Records) of the 2013 Broadway revival.
But I am, mostly because of the palpable performances that come through on the record -
especially Patina Miller (a Tony winner for her Leading Player), who leads a rambunctious
Magic to Do, and Matthew James Thomas, charming in the naïve title role as he delivers
Corner of the Sky and
With You.
Charlotte D'Amboise delivers
Spread a Little Sunshine with panache.
Meanwhile, her husband Terrence Mann is a fine King Charlemagne. You can get some sense of
his performance (though not as much as I'd prefer) from
War is a Science.
Andrea Martin, the Tony-winning scene-stealer of this acrobatics-mad version, easily
seduces the theatergoer and listener with
No Time at All.
Still, it sure helps if you've seen her knock-out scene, not to mention all the others, if
only to bring back the wondrous memories while listening to the score.

Giant
Composer-lyricist Michael John La Chiusa is considered an up-and-coming Broadway talent even
though he's only written the score so far for two full-fledged Broadway musicals:
The Wild Party (which I admired) and
Marie Christine (which I didn't see.)
Without a long-running hit, La Chiusa is perceived by most producers as a safer bet for
off-Broadway runs, but he scored a great success this past season with the off-Broadway debut at
New York's Public Theatre of
Giant (Ghostlight Records).
La Chiusa's songs are tuneful and emotionally stirring in this intriguing adaptation by La
Chiusa and book author Sybille Pearson of Edna Furber's novel, best known for the Oscar-winning
1956 film starring Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, about a wealth Texas ranching family
struggling with wayward fortunes, prejudice and tension over children.
Of all the off-Broadway musicals whose cast albums I listened to this year,
Giant sounds like it has the most potential for regional productions.

Memory Mayhem
Norbert Leo Butz has earned his place as one of today's best singer-actors on Broadway.
He starred in
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, won a Tony award for playing the FBI agent in the short-lived
Catch Me If You Can and deserves to be nominated for another Tony for his starring role of
the father with secrets and dreams in the equally short-lived
Big Fish.
Given all that, his song choices on his solo album
Memory Mayhem (Broadway) may be a bit quirky and surprising.
There aren't any obvious Broadway song standards, for instance. Instead, Butz draws from the
work of songwriters like Tom Waits and Van Morrison.
But his strong choices, which include several selections from a live cabaret show he
performed at the New York club 54 Below, reflect his versatility.
Butz can sing anything, from jazzy standards
(The Way Young Lovers Do) and bluesy laments
(Killing the Blues) to country and soul. And he does so with convincing passion and
dexterity.
Among my favorites:
Georgia on My Mind and Alicia Keys'
No One.

In Constant Search of the Right Kind of Attention
Laura Benanti, who appears in the TV live broadcast of
The Sound of Music, has released a terrific album (Broadway Records).
Recorded live at New York's 54 Below nightclub, her cabaret act blends a few original songs
and personal stories about her life and career with intriguing interpretations of contemporary hits
and some of her favorite theater songs.
For instance, Benanti updates and personalizes one of the classics from
My Fair Lady in
On the Street Where I Lived.
Benanti, who appeared in the Broadway revival of
Nine, shows off her torchy sensuality in a reprise of
Unusual Way.
Nominated for a Tony for her performance in
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Benanti savors the sassy Latin spirit in her
showstopping song Model Behavior. In some ways a fast patter song reminiscent of Sondheim's
Getting married Today, her energetic reprise of
Model Behavior goes off like a string of firecrackers.

The Radio In My Head
Aaron Tveit is a the young Broadway talent who's made a name for himself in
Wicked, Next to Normal and Catch me If You Can.
In his solo album (Broadway Records), recorded live from his cabaret show at New York's
54 Below, Tveit tackles a wide variety of Broadway and off-Broadway hits.
He gives different but valid interpretations to
If I Loved You from Rodgers and Hammerstein's
Carousel and to
One Song Glory from Jonathan Larson's
Rent.
But he also finds rewards in examining lesser-known songs from mostly forgotten shows,
such as
What You'd Call a Dream, a Craig Carnelia tune from
Diamonds, a short-lived 1985 offBroadway revue about baseball.
Overall, Tveit hits a few home runs.
Even when he doesn't, he always gets at least to first or second base.

Other records
Other notable theater albums:
The Last Five Years, (Ghostlight Records), an off-Broadway revival of Jason Robert Brown's
two-hander musical about a man (Adam Kantor) and a woman (Betsy Wolfe) and their differing
perspectives (one looks back, the other forward) on the five years of their romantic relationship;
When I Grow Up: Broadway's Next Generation (Broadway Records), with a bunch of child
performers demonstrating their talent with a variety of songs from mostly modern musicals like
Spring Awakening, The Drowsy Chaperone, Chicago, Company, Into the Woods, Wicked and
The Book of Mormon.
By contrast, I didn't connect much with the cast album from the shortlived Broadway
musical
Hands on a Hardbody (Ghostlight) though the latter show about a marathon Middle America
competition to win a new car does have a few catchy country-style tunes.
At first hearing – which always comes with a caveat when you haven't seen the show yet – the
off-Broadway cast album of
Dogfight (Ghostlight) seemed melodic but not that memorable. With a score by Benj Pasek
and Justin Pal *(who also wrote the score for the Broadway musical version of
A Christmas Story), the romantic drama revolves around a U.S. soldier in the early 1960s
who learns a lesson from a waitress on his final night out partying with his buddies before he
leaves for Vietnam.
Yet, a few songs stand out, from the rhapsodic sense of joy and discovery in
Nothing Short of Wonderful (after the girl's "date" with the guy) to the soaring yearning
of
Come Back.
Overall, the score reveals Pasek and Pal as emerging talents to watch.